This invention relates to control apparatus and more particularly to a circuit for controlling the functioning of a vendor.
The functions that a vendor is required to perform are becoming so complex that present control circuits, using electro-mechanical means, are unduly limited. The typical electro-mechanical control circuit, for example, is severely limited in the number and kind of functions it can perform in response to customer commands. Also, typical electromechanical control circuits are dedicated to a particular method of operation of the vendor, i.e., they cannot easily be modified to control new vendor functions or to accept different input signals from the vendor. As a result, when a new vendor function is added to a vendor, it is sometimes necessary to make a new control circuit rather than update the existing control circuit already in the vendor. And updating such control circuits usually requires additional circuit components and interconnections. In any event, the cost in updating existing control circuits, especially to accommodate increasingly complex vendor functions, can be prohibitive.
Present control circuits also lack means for easily setting prices and for checking that the proper prices have been set. Particularly where the items' prices change often, this is a real disadvantage; the serviceman or other authorized personnel must laboriously change those prices which are to be changed and just as laboriously check all those prices. Likewise, in beverage vendors (for example), other parameters, such as throws of ingredients, are also not easily checked or reset. In addition, prior circuits lack effective means for keeping track of the total accumulated sales of a vendor. The total accumulated sales figure, of course, would be very helpful in improving product inventory and cash control.
At least one prototype control circuit using a microprocessor has been developed to address some of the above problems. But it also has its disadvantages. The prototype unit, for example, used a volatile memory with a battery backup for storing prices. During an extended power failure, therefore, the prototype circuit lost the prices. The method of setting prices with the prototype circuit, although an improvement over prior control circuits, has problems of its own. And the prototype circuit has no provision for keeping track of total accumulated sales.